Kiwanis hears about Ohio Pork Producers

On June 24 Kiwanis of Galion held its final meeting of the month. The club passed a second reading to donate $250 to the boy scouts for their picnic shelter project on school grounds. One more reading is necessary in order to take effect.

President Doug Greene announced that the next highway cleanup will take place some time in July after the Independence Day weekend. Kiwanis has a few months until their next big project which will be the pancake breakfast in September. Early planning for that event took place during Tuesday’s meeting. They said that they would like to keep the event at the intermediate school. They also discussed the possibility of children under a certain age being free if accompanied by a paying adult. They also came up with the idea to possibly sell the pancakes to go, as well as possibly doing a raffle. None of these ideas were finalized as they were in the beginning stages of being planned.

The final numbers from the rose sale were in. The group brought in a total of $1,160 from the project.

The guest speaker for the day was Blanche Lange from the Ohio Pork Producer’s Council. The topic of her speech was “farming and food.” Lange has been on the Ohio Pork Producer’s Council since 1984. She received her bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University in Food and Nutrition.

Lange owns a farm with her brother called Lange Farms LLC. The 750 acre farm was first purchased by her grandfather in 1903. It has stayed in the family since that time. She is the CFO of the farm which became an LLC in 1978. On the farm Lange said they raise hogs as well as farm wheat, corn, and beans. Seven-hundred hogs come out of their farm annually.

Lange said that Ohio is in the top ten of pork producing states in the nation. She said that 1.5 percent of Americans are farmers, and 0.08 percent of Ohioans farm. She expressed that individually each farmer feeds 150 people.

Lange said that by 2050 that the population is expected to grow by one-third of what it is now. She said that farming will continue to help feed the people of the world as the population grows. Lange said that on her farm they use good farming practices, which includes using manure, non-GMO products and having soil tests done every three years.

Lange said that recently a disease called PEVD disease has spread through the nation. This disease causes hogs to have diarrhea at birth and leads to death. She said that one guy that she knows usually sends out 1,000 hogs per year but only was able to send out 38 this year due to death. Lange said that the good news is that there has been a vaccine developed for one of the strains of the viruses in Ohio.

She said that this disease has led to higher pork prices and wanted to make people aware of the problem. Lange said that when they send their hogs off to the packers that they want them to be anywhere from 200-250 lbs. She said that the meat is 25% leaner than it was in the 80’s and that pork tenderloin is lower in calories and fat than chicken breast. She said that their hogs eat seven different rations from the time they start eating at ten days old. They eat a mixture combination of minerals, corn, and soybean meal.

Overall Lange said that Ohio hog farmers are active in the community by donating pork to Second Harvest food banks, contributing meat to local events, talking to students at elementary schools, supplying jobs and boosting the local economy, and supporting education by awarding scholarships to those who pursue college education.